The growing anti-war movement raised its voice yesterday in the heart of New York, urging that last week's attacks should not lead to more civilian casualties. Speakers from a variety of groups and religions gave warning that the most likely casualties of an attack on Afghanistan would be impoverished civilians - not those actually responsible for last week's devastation. The anti-globalisation rally that was to have taken place in Washington on September 29 will now become an anti-war protest. Vigils and rallies for peace are planned for New York this weekend after an informal network of groups turned into a coalition opposed to a violent response.

A broad range of groups and individuals, including the former US attorney general Ramsey Clark and Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, has formed an organisation called international ANSWER (act now to stop war and end racism.) Speakers gathered yesterday in front of the statue of George Washington - now with a peace-symbol flag in his hand - in Union Square, which has become an informal shrine. Countless candles, messages and photos of the dead have been left there. Police stood by but the mood was calm. "We must not confuse collective punishment with justice," said Andrew Settner, of Jews for racial and economic justice. "Violence should not lead to more violence." Imam Yalib Abdur-Rashid, an African-American member of the Islamic leadership council of New York, accused the US government of "whipping up the American people into a patriotic frenzy".

He said Muslim leaders had already met Christian and Jewish leaders because of concern about violence in the US against Muslims, Sikhs and Arabs. Shekaiba Wakili, of women for Afghani women, said: "We Muslim and Afghani-Americans stand united with our grieving nation. The Taliban do not represent the Afghani people." "We are South Asians, we are immigrants, and right now we feel a firing from both sides," said Sunita Mehta. "If there is a military retaliation against Afghanistan, the most devastated victims will not be the perpetrators of this reprehensible crime."

A poll by CBS News and the New York Times found that 85% believed that the US should take military action against those responsible for the atrocity, and 75% said that such action should be taken even if it led to the deaths of innocent people. Relatives of those killed have also called for restraint. Professor Orlando Rodriguez of Fordham University, whose only son Gregory was killed, told the New York Daily News that he was horrified by calls for retaliation."Indiscriminate retribution is not going to help," he said. Naomi Braine, of the organisation women in black New York, is one of the organisers of protests against the war. "This is going to be different from any other anti-war movement since World War II," she said. "We will really be a minority voice." Around 400 anti-war ac tivists have already attended a vigil in Washington and there were anti-war placards carried on a rally in Brooklyn last Sunday night called by Arab-Americans and attended by around 1,000 people. Robert Jensen, a professor at the University of Texas, has been coordinating resistance at the college to military strikes since last week. "I have been called a traitor more times in the last four days than in my whole life," he said. "I have also had many offers of one-way tickets to Afghanistan." But he believed there was a greater number of people opposed to the war than suggested by the television reports and polls.

Mr Jensen added that he understood why people might not want to demonstrate publicly their opposition to a war. "People are scared and it is creating an almost organic peace movement," he said.